The Department of Special Collections and University Archives collects and preserves textual, visual, and auditory materials of enduring historical value and makes them available to researchers at no charge.

The collections held by SCUA are rich and deeply interrelated, documenting four areas of historic and cultural interest: social change, New England, the University of Massachusetts, and innovation and entrepreneurship.

Information about all of our manuscript and photographic collections is included in UMarmot. Use the search box and menus to the right to navigate our collections and to locate collections of interest.

Joseph S. Marcus Papers

Joseph Sol Marcus arrived at UMass in 1948 as an Instructor in Civil Engineering and graduate student (MS 1954), remaining there for the rest of his career. Born in Oct. 29, 1921, he was educated at Worcester Polytech (BS 1944) and after war-time service with the Navy, he joined the rapidly growing engineering program at UMass. Although chemical engineer, he took responsibility for the fluid mechanics laboratory and taught in civil and mechanical engineering, and after gaining experience through courses from the Atomic Energy Commission and a year spent at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, he introduced nuclear engineering into the curriculum. As he rose through the academic ranks, Marcus became a key figure in university administration, serving as Associate Dean of Engineering, as preceptor for Emily Dickinson House on Orchard Hill, and Special Assistant to the Chancellor for long-range planning, while serving on committees for military affairs, Engineering hopnors, transfers and admissions, discipline, and Continuing Education. Marcus died of cancer on Nov. 1, 1985. Marcus Hall was named in his honor.

The Joseph Marcus Papers document Marcus’s extensive involvement in campus affairs at UMass Amherst, with an emphasis on the period 1965-1975. A small quantity of material relating to his profession activities and academic appointments is joined by well organized files relating to his participation in committees of Engineering honors, Military Affairs (1967-1968), the Orchard Hill residential college and Emily Dickinson House (1964-1969), ROTC and AFROTC curricula, transfers and admissions, the library, Upward Bound, Discipline (1964-1971), and Continuing Education (1970-1977).

Praelection Chymicae

ca.1770

1 vol., 539p.0.1 linear feet

Call no.: MS 640 bd

Bound in marbled paper boards and identified on the spine as “Praelection Chymicae, Vol. 1, G. Martin,” this mid-18th century volume on chemistry includes references to Andreas Marggraf, John Henry Pott, Hermann Boerhaave, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, and [William] Cullen. Although incomplete and not certainly identified as to location, the front pastedown includes a manuscript notation from Lucien M. Rice indicating that the volume “came into my posession at Charleston, S.C. April 18th A.D. 1865,” while a member of the U.S.S. Acacia (in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron), along with a printed bookplate for Lucien M. Royce. Evidence of singeing at the top corners of the book may be connected to its provenance. The volume may represent a student’s notes, with Martin corresponding either to the lecturer or auditor.

Subjects

Chemistry--Study and teaching--18th century

Contributors

Jean Paul Mather Papers

Jean Paul Mather was the youngest president in his era to lead a land-grant university. He joined the University of Massachusetts in 1953 as Provost, and was appointed President in 1954, at the age of 39. During his tenure, he oversaw major academic restructuring and advocated fiscal autonomy for the University, struggling with state officials to raise salaries for the faculty. His work is credited with building a foundation for the academic strength of the University. Mather left UMass in 1960 to assume the Presidency of the American College Testing Program, and he later became President of the University City Science Center in Philadelphia from 1964 to 1969. In 1969, Mather returned to his alma mater, the Colorado School of Mines, to become head of the mineral economic department.

Correspondence, memos, speeches, reports, biographical material, clippings, memorabilia, photographs and other papers, relating chiefly to Mather’s work as President, University of Massachusetts. Includes material relating to the Freedom Bill (granting the university autonomy in personnel matters), establishment of an exchange program with Hokkaido University, Japan, and Mather’s inauguration (including minutes of the Committee on Inauguration).

Subjects

Hokkaidō Daigaku

Universities and colleges--Administration

Universities and colleges--Law and legislation

University of Massachusetts Amherst. President

Contributors

Lazar Mayants Papers

1941-2003

2 boxes3 linear feet

Call no.: FS 009

Born in Gomel, Russia in 1912, Lazar Mayants earned a PhD in chemistry (1941) from the Karpov Institute for Physical Chemistry and a Doctor of Science in physics and mathematics (1947) at the Lebedev Institute for Physics (FIAN), both in Moscow. With primary research interests in theoretical molecular spectroscopy, applied linear algebra, quantum physics, probability theory and statistics, and the philosophy of science, he began his career as Professor and Chair of the Theoretical and General Physics Departments at Ivanovo, Saratov, and Smolensk Universities in Russia. Mayants came to University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1981 as a visiting professor, becoming an Adjunct in 1987. He taught at UMass for over six years, often forgoing a paycheck as a result of decreased funding in the sciences. He remained in Amherst until his death in November 2002.

The Mayants Papers are comprised of professional correspondence, drafts of articles, personal and financial records, and notes for research and teaching. Mayants’s dissertation from the Lebedev Institute for Physics is also included with the collection.

Subjects

Physics--Research

Quantum theory

University of Massachusetts Amherst--Faculty

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Physics

Contributors

Harold T. McCarthy Papers

Author, English professor, and University of Massachusetts alumnus (class of 1941) Harold T. McCarthy taught at the University of Massachusetts from 1959 and into his retirement in the late 1980s. In addition to his books on Henry James (1968) and the expatriate perspective on the idea of America (1972), he wrote fiction and poetry as well as critical articles on Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Richard Wright.

Types of material

Robert James McFall Papers

1918-1926

1 box0.5 linear feet

Call no.: FS 133

Robert J. McFallPhoto by Frank A. Waugh, 1927

A specialist in agricultural marketing, Robert J. McFall arrived at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in January 1920 to take up work with the Extension Service. A graduate of Geneva College and Phd from Columbia University (1915), McFall had worked with the Canadian Bureau of Statistics for two years before his arrival in Amherst.

The McFall collection includes a suite of published and unpublished works in agricultural economics, including an incomplete run of Economic Reports from MAC on business conditions (1921-1925), and papers on agricultural cooperation in Massachusetts, municipal abattoirs, business regulation in Canada, agriculture and population increase, and the New England dairy market. Of particular note is a monograph-length work co-authored by McFall and Alexander Cance, entitled “The Massachusetts Agricultural College in its Relations to the Food Supply Program of the Commonwealth.”

Contributors

Malcolm Arthur McKenzie Papers

1926-1995

3 boxes4.5 linear feet

Call no.: FS 107

Forest pathologist and arboriculturist Malcolm Arthur McKenzie was born in Providence, Rhode Island in April 1903. After attending Brown University (PhD Forest Pathology, 1935), he worked successively as a field assistant for the United States Forest Service forest products lab, as an instructor at the University of North Carolina, and finally with the University of Massachusetts Shade Tree Laboratory. He conducted important research on the diseases of shade trees, including Dutch elm disease, wood decay, and tree pests, as well as related issues in tree hazards in public utility work and municipal tree maintenance.

The McKenzie Papers document McKenzie’s association with the UMass Shade Tree Lab, along with some professional correspondence, research notes and publications, and McKenzie’s dissertation on willows.

Gift of Francis W. Holmes, June 2000

Subjects

Plant pathology

Shade trees

University of Massachusetts Amherst--Faculty

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Botany Department

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Shade Tree Laboratory

Contributors

Neil McKie Daybook

Merchant who owned a dry goods and general merchandise shop in Easton, New York. Daybook representing purchases by hundreds of customers (some of whom were from among the region’s Quaker community) primarily from Easton, South Easton, and Cambridge, listed by surname, as well as lists of a wide variety of dry goods including some textiles identified by town of origin.

Subjects

Akin, E. N

Beadle, D. S

Cambridge (N.Y.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Dingman, Henry

Dry-goods--Prices--New York--Easton--19th century

Easton (N.Y.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Foster, Rhodon

General stores--New York--Easton

Hoag, Isaac

Hunt, Daniel

McKie, George

Quakers--New York (State)--Cambridge

Quakers--New York (State)--Easton

Starbuck, Hiram

Thomas, D. C

Whiteside, Abbey

Contributors

McKie, Neil

Types of material

Robert Hatch McNeal Papers

1955-1986

8 boxes4 linear feet

Call no.: FS 079

Robert H. McNeal, a renowned expert on the history of the Soviet Union, joined the University faculty in 1969 and served as the head of the History department from 1971 to 1975. McNeal wrote authoritative works on Soviet leadership, contributed to the World Book and a number of other reference works, and taught many History courses on Russian and Soviet history. His work, however, came to a tragic end in 1988 when his car was broadsided pulling out of a gas station near Princeton University. Born in 1930 in Newark, New Jersey, McNeal earned his B.A. From Yale University in 1952, his M.A. from Columbia in 1954, and Ph.D. from the same school in 1958.

Representing mainly his work as a teacher at the University of Massachusetts, McNeal’s papers include lecture notes, ordered alphabetically by topic as well as several folders of research and article manuscripts on Pushkanen. Also included in the collection are two years of professional correspondence from 1968-1970, biographical sketches and photographs of important historical figures, and several Soviet Christmas cards from the 1950s.